Loneliness is a main theme of current social psychology ad researchers are extensively studying its origin, characteristics, correlates and consequences. This construct has been shown to be closely related to mental health in the context of
social
relations. Although several studies have been conducted sung a psychiatric sample, little is known about loneliness in people suffering from mojor psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and depression. We therefore conducted this study to
investigate loneliness in schizophrenic and depressed patients and its relation with sociodemographic, clinical and social relation variables. Our aim was to obtain data useful for therapeutic application.
The subjects were 89 schizophrenic and 60 depressed patients on outpatient maintenance therapy at the Department of Neuropsychiatry at Hanyang University Hospital during the period of October 1, 1994 to March 31, 1995. The control group
consisted
of 90
normal adults. The Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale, Ways of Coping Checklists, Interpersonal Relations Ability Scale and Interpersonal Support Evaluation List were applied to all subjects. The sociodemographic, clinical and social relation
variables
utilized for this study were: sex, age, education, religion, marital status, occupation, number of co-habitants and number of friends seen more than once a month.
Schizophrenics were found to be lonelier than the control group, but no statistically significant difference was found with regard to the depressed patients. The variable most related to loneliness was the number of friends seen more than once a
month
for the schizophrenics, male sex and religious affiliation among the depressed patients and female sex in the control group. Clinical variables showed no close association with loneliness.
Multiple regression analysis revealed that interpersonal relations ability played a relatively small role in loneliness among the schizophrenics. Meanwhile, informative and assessable social support played a strong role in loneliness among the
depressed
patients. For the control group, interpersonal relations ability and informative and assesable social support were both positively related to loneliness whereas emotion-focused coping was negatively related.
The study results suggest that loneliness in schizophrenia and depression may have different natures and meanings. The former is associated with decreased social network size and impaired social skills whereas the latter is associated with
negative
cognition. On this basis, we suggest that different therapeutic approaches be considered when treating these patients to alleviate their loneliness and improve their social relations.
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